The Way you Shake and Shiver
by drmarks
Summary: Scooby Doo, where are you? After the death of Scooby Doo, the gang tries to move on. But they soon realise that the days of Mystery Inc. are over, and their lives begin to fall apart.


_Mystery Inc. is solving another mystery._ _This time they're after a man in a ghost costume, who is terrorizing a small town._

Everything is going along normally, Scooby and Shaggy find food and then get scared and run away in each other's arms, Velma loses her glasses,  
Daphne gets captured, and Freddy thinks up a plan to unmask the crook.

As always Scooby messes up the trap, but the gang isn't concerned because it always goes right in the end.

But then it all goes wrong. Scooby gets caught up in a rope net meant for the ghost, and the ghost gets away.  
After saving Daphne, Freddy jumps into the Mystery Machine and chases after him. Scooby untangles himself and runs towards Shaggy, who is holding a box of Scooby Snacks.

_BANG!_

Freddy steps out of the Mystery Machine, and they all look down at Scooby's lifeless body in the middle of the road.  
Freddy couldn't turn the Machine out of the way fast enough. Scooby-Doo was dead.

**TWO WEEKS AFTER**

The gang had tried to keep going, but they had no spirit any more, and they couldn't solve a single mystery.  
One by one they drifted away from each other.

Shaggy sits in his shabby apartment, his drug addiction already beginning to spiral out of control.  
And half-concious he says:

"Scooby-dooby-doo, where are you? We've got some work to do now..."

**FOUR WEEKS AFTER**

Freddy tried to find a proper job, but nothing worked. He had thought of writing a book about his life,  
about Mystery Inc. But whenever he thought about it he felt sick. This was his fault. He had known Mystery Inc couldn't last forever, but not that it would end like this. The Mystery Machine sits in his garage, gathering dust.  
He could't afford to keep it for long.

**SIX WEEKS AFTER**

Daphne is hiding in a dark alley, sobbing. She couldn't believe that just over a month ago she was happy,  
with a fun and care-free life, a man who actually loved her, and friends. She looks down at her body,  
bruised and scarred, her dress torn and ugly. How did she ever afford to have nice clothes?  
She wondered how Freddy was going. He was always cheerful. She was stupid for leaving him. She'd been angry and confused when she left them all behind.  
Where did she think she was going to go?

**EIGHT WEEKS AFTER**

Velma hadn't heard from the others in a long time. She had talked to Shaggy over the phone last week, and he hadn't sounded well. Whenever she had contacted Freddy his voice was faint and he sounded as if he didn't want to speak with her. Eventually she stopped trying to talk to him. She didn't know where Daphne was now,  
or how to reach her. She had barely talked to Daphne when the gang was together. And now she didn't even know if she was alive.  
They could all be dead for all she knew.

When the police found Norville Rogers, he was long gone. Flies buzzed around his body and there was week old food all over the floor. The young woman who had wanted the police to check up on Norville had called him Shaggy, and they could see why. His hair was unwashed and hung over his ears, and he had a scruffy unshaven face. They didn't know if it was suicide, or if the drugs had finally caught up with him. In his hand was a photo.  
It was of him and a large brown dog.

**TEN WEEKS AFTER**

The Mystery Machine was gone. The older couple who had bought it from Freddy lived just down the road, and said they wanted to travel around America in it. A few days after he had sold it he walked past the couple's house and saw the Machine in the front yard. It had a "For Sale" sign on it.  
The price was triple the price they had paid. That was a week ago, and now Freddy thought about his life.  
Everything was gone now. And it was all because of him. When he heard about Shaggy he had lain on his bed for hours, staring at the ceiling. This was all his fault.

When they found a young woman with red hair dead in a pile of garbage, nobody cared. Nobody even knew her name.  
The only clue to who she was was a piece of paper in her pocket. It looked like it was part of a letter. Only one word could be made out; "Freddy", and next to it was a love heart.

**TWELVE WEEKS AFTER**

Velma was sitting in her room in silence. On a wall was a picture of her with some people she once knew, and their dog.  
On a table was a picture of the same people, with a brightly painted van behind them. On her desk was an open photo album, filled with pictures of people wearing costumes, scaring people, and being caught by Velma and her friends.  
They had been good times but now the pictures disturbed her. In her drawer were dozens of bizarre masks, ones that looked like werewolves and mummies and ghosts. They all had a story. Velma had tried to move on with her life.  
She had ditched the always-falling-off glasses and gotten contacts, and she'd gotten a girlfriend who could make her smile again.  
But she could never forget.

**THIRTEEN WEEKS AFTER**

Velma knocked on the door of Freddy's house, but there was no answer. She tried the handle and it was unlocked.  
And straight away she knew something was wrong. Her stomach churned as she walked through the doorway. And then she saw it.  
Freddy had always been good at making traps for the bad guys. But this one wasn't for a man in a werewolf mask,  
or some creep in a white sheet. This one was for Freddy.  
Velma fell to her knees and cried, for Freddy, and for Shaggy and Daphne, and for Scooby-Doo.  
Quietly she began to sing.

"Scooby-dooby-doo, where are you,  
you're ready and you're willing,  
if we can count on you, Scooby-Doo,  
I know we'll catch that villain."

An old crazy man sits in his cell, waiting to die. He had been found wearing a shabby handmade ghost costume,  
and he'd been taken to the asylum right away. As his life fades away, he says something in a faint voice.  
A voice that only he can hear.

"And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids."


End file.
